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Through [Jesus] we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Eph.
2:18).
When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as
the heathen do. . . . For your Father knows the things you have need
of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in
heaven, hallowed be Your name (Mt. 6:7-9).
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of
grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of
need (Heb. 4:16).
The statements above would be seen as
blasphemous if you believed that because God is perfect and separated
from evil, He cannot be approached so casually, if at all, by people
like you and me. Yet Jesus and His disciples have made it clear that
we indeed can come to God in prayer because we are family through
faith in Christ.
If I wanted to meet with a high-ranking
federal government official, I would have to make an
appointment--days or months in advance. But when I want to talk with
my dad, what do I do? I simply drop by his home or pick up the phone
and call him. Why? Because we're family.
My two children know they can come and talk to
me anytime at all. No appointments are necessary. They don't have to
put on their best clothes or even take a bath first. They don't have
to use special language, kneel down, hold their hands a certain way,
or follow an outline of what to say. Why? Because we're family.
We can call God "Abba."
Abba is the Aramaic term that Jewish children
use to address their fathers. (Aramaic is a language closely related
to Hebrew and was commonly spoken during the time of Christ's
ministry.) The English equivalent of Abba would be the terms Daddy or
Dear Father. Although the term was originally derived from babytalk,
by the time of Christ it was a word used by young and old alike to
speak in an intimate way to their fathers.
The New Testament was written in Greek (the
trade language of the wider Mediterranean world), so the word we
usually find for father is pater. But because the common language of
the day in Palestine was Aramaic, we have good reason to believe that
when Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be Your name" (Mt. 6:9), He told them to use the term
Abba.
In Romans 8:15, the apostle Paul said that
because we are God's adopted children, we can cry out "Abba,
Father" (this phrase is also used in Mark 14:36 and Galatians
4:6). Concerning this verse, Bible commentator F. F. Bruce writes
that the use of Abba is significant because "Abba was not, and
is not the term used by Jews when addressing God as their Father. But
the fact that the Aramaic word found its way into the worshiping
vocabulary of the Gentile churches strongly suggests that it was used
in this way by Jesus" (The Epistle of Paul to the Romans,
Eerdmans, p.166).
Why is this privilege so significant? The Old
Testament emphasizes God's awesome holiness to such a degree that He
does not seem approachable. The tabernacle and temple reinforced this
idea by both structure and ritual. God's special presence was not
something that everyone could enter--only the high priest, and only
once a year.
In his book What Jesus Said About Successful
Living, Haddon W. Robinson writes, "In the Old Testament, the
Israelites did not individually address God as Father. As far as we
know, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, or Daniel never fell to their
knees in the solitude of their chambers and dared to address God that
way. Yet in the New Testament, God is called Father at least 275
times, and that is how we are instructed to speak to Him. All that a
good father wants to be to his children, Jesus told us, God will be
to Christians who approach Him in prayer. We can pray as
children" (Discovery House Publishers, p.190).
In the New Testament, we have a clear picture
of the believer's privilege to call God "Father." It is
central to the gospel message and to the way we are to live as
Christ's followers. God's holiness and greatness is not diminished by
this in the least because in Christ we have a mediator who satisfies
God's requirements for holiness and who makes us holy by His
sacrifice for our sins (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:15; 12:24). We can
now come before Him with a God-sanctioned boldness (Eph. 3:12; Heb.
4:16; 10:19).
Isn't there a danger of taking prayer too
lightly? There certainly is. As we embrace the refreshing truth that
we have unhindered access to God through Jesus Christ, we must not
forget that God is truly awesome. Haddon Robinson states, "The
fact that we come to a throne should fill us with awe. But because it
is a throne of grace, it is approachable. . . . We can intimately and
confidently talk with our Father" (What Jesus Said About
Successful Living, p.191).
If you don't know where to start, pray David's
psalms. David's life was characterized by prayer. In Psalm 109:4
David wrote, "In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I
am a man of prayer." The translators supplied "a man
of," but the text reads simply, "but I am prayer."
Prayer was the essence of David's life and his genius, as it is ours.
We have this access to God, this intimacy with Him, this opportunity
to receive all that the heart of God has stored up for us. It is the
means by which we receive God's gifts, the means by which everything
is done. David teaches us to pray.
Prayer is worship. Our praying should be full
of adoration, affection, and fondness for God that He is who He is,
that He created us in order to have someone on whom He could shower
His love, that He stretched out His arms on the cross, and that He intends,
in the fullest sense, to make whole men and women out of us. In
worship, as the old word worth-ship implies, we declare what we value
the most. It is one of the best ways in the world to love God.
Prayer is the highest expression of our
dependence on God. It is asking for what we want. We can ask for
anything--even the most difficult things. "Do not be anxious
about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Phil. 4:6). Anything
large enough to occupy our minds is large enough to hang a prayer on.
Prayer, however, by its nature is requesting.
It is not insisting or clamoring. We can make no demands of God or
deals with Him. Furthermore, we're coming to a friend. Friends don't
make demands. They ask and then wait. We wait with patience and
submission until God gives us what we request--or something more.
David wrote, "I have stilled and quieted
my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is
my soul within me" (Ps. 131:2). David was in exile, waiting for
God, learning not to worry himself with God's delays and other
mysterious ways. No longer restless and craving, he waited for God to
answer in His own time and in His own way. He is able to do far more
than anything we can ask or imagine, but He must do it in His time
and in His way. We ask in our time and in our way; God answers in
His.
Prayer is asking for understanding. It is the
means by which we comprehend what God is saying to us in His Word.
The process by which we gain awareness of His mind is not natural,
but supernatural. Spiritual things are discerned spiritually (1 Cor.
2:6-16). There is truth that can never be grasped by the human
intellect. It cannot be discovered; it must be disclosed. Certainly
we can understand the facts in the Bible apart from God's help, but we
can never plumb its depths, never fully appreciate "what God has
prepared for those who love Him" (v.9). We must pray and wait
for truth to come honestly into our minds.
Prayer moves what we know from our heads to
our hearts. It's our hedge against hypocrisy, the way by which we
begin to ring true. Our perceptions of truth are always ahead of our
condition. Prayer brings us more into conformity. It bridges the gap
between what we know and what we are.
Prayer focuses and unites our fragmented
hearts. We have a thousand necessities. It's impossible for us to
purify them and simplify them and integrate them into one. David
prayed, "Give me an undivided heart" (Ps. 86:11). He wanted
to love God with his whole heart, but he couldn't sustain the effort.
Other interests and affections pulled him and divided him, so he
asked God to guard his heart and unite its affections into one.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, "He wakens me
morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.
The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears, and I have not been
rebellious; I have not drawn back" (Isa. 50:4-5). Centering on
God each morning should be done as though it had never been done
before. In that quiet place He comforts us, He instructs us, He
listens to us, He prepares our hearts and strengthens us for the day.
There we learn to love Him and worship Him again. We esteem His words
and defer to Him once more. We get His fresh perspective on the
problems and possibilities of our day.
Then we should take His presence with us all
through the day--journeying, pausing, waiting, listening, recalling
what He said to us in the morning. He is our teacher, our
philosopher, our friend; our gentlest, kindest, and most interesting
companion.
He is with us wherever we go. He is in the
commonplace, whether we know it or not. "Surely the LORD is in
this place," Jacob said of a most unlikely location, "and I
was not aware of it" (Gen. 28:16). We may not realize that He is
close by. We may feel lonely and sad and desolate. Our day may seem
bleak and dreary without a visible ray of hope, yet He is present.
God has said, "Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The
Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid" (Heb. 13:5-6).
The clamor of this visible and audible world
is so persistent and God's quiet voice sometimes is so faint that we
forget that He is near. But not to worry: He cannot forget us.
In God's presence there is satisfaction. His
lush meadows are boundless. His still water runs deep. "There,"
I say to myself, "[I] will lie down in good grazing land, and
there [I] will feed in a rich pasture" (Ezek. 34:14).
What is your prayer-life like?
I don't know about you, but these truths from
the Bible help me to see that heaven's door is always open to me as a
member of God's family. The Father is eagerly anticipating my next
visit, longing to hear my words of affection, to hear of my
struggles, to hear my expressions of trust, and to hear the requests
that show my realization that I depend on Him for everything in life.
I hope you too are sensing the wonderful privilege and opportunity we
have as God's children.
Curtis
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